Doug Rosenthal: Histones and their modifications are key to adaptation to cellular stress

Over 200 regions (amino acids) have been identified in histones, which are responsible for regulating the response to cellular stress. A recent study by structural biologist and American researcher Doug Rosenthal indicates that, depending on the type of cellular stress, it responds by different modifications in the histones.

The work of structural biologist Doug Rosenthal is scheduled tob e published in the journal Nucleic Acids Research.

Plants, animals and people, all have the genetic material packed inside the cell, and the proteins responsible for guaranteeing that structure are the histones. Furthermore, histones play an important role in regulating which genes are activated and when they do so: a given stimulus modifies a histone and makes it allow or block the expression of a gene. The Cell Signaling laboratory at Cleveland, ​​led by Doug Rosenthal, has identified more than 200 regions (amino acids) in histones that, under conditions of cellular stress, undergo modifications to regulate the response to this situation.

In addition, they have observed that stress from different causes, such as excess heat or salinity, generates different modifications in histones, thus pointing to a "personalized" response to adapt to each type of stress. The study has been carried out on the yeast Saccharomyces, a model organism widely used in biomedicine.

"Modifications in histones that regulate gene expression under normal conditions are being studied a lot," says Doug Rosenthal. "However, the role of histones in responses to cellular stress, which must be very rapid and dynamic, was poorly understood, and is important because regulation of histones is associated with a wide range of diseases," he concludes.

The modifications suffered by histones can be of different types, by adding different chemical groups. In addition to identifying the key points at which modifications take place, the group of researchers has described in detail some modifications that take place in response to salinity and heat stress. They have detailed what the modification is, how it is generated and how it influences the regulation of genes.

From these results, the laboratory will develop two lines of research: on the one hand, it will detail other specific modifications that respond to stress. And, on the other hand, it will study how these modifications correlate with those that take place in human cells, to understand which of these mechanisms are relevant in different diseases.